“Problems?” the man asked, but he was already enacting the safety measures that we had made for the entire fifteen-acre estate. Within moments I heard the metal shutters come down over the windows.
“Sal’s worried.”
Brant’s dark eyes snapped to me. “Sal is worried?”
I nodded rapidly.
Brant picked up the phone and ordered the backup security crew to gear up and get to the estate as soon as possible. I could understand his urgency. While Sal put the estate on lockdown quite frequently, he was very rarely worried like this.
It unnerved me.
Sal was my rock, the unmovable mountain that stood between me and the world. If he was worried, even if he didn’t know why he was worried, then we could be in big trouble.
Zombie apocalypse came immediately to mind.
“I need to get back to the study,” I told Brant. “Is Lincoln on the grounds?”
Brant shook his head. “He’s currently at the recording studio. Why?”
“You might want to call him and let him know what is going on, give him the choice on whether to come back here or go stay somewhere else until this is over.” After everything Lincoln had been through when he was kidnapped by some psychotic woman who believed they were in love, we all treated him with kid gloves, especially Brant.
“I’d feel better if he was here where I could keep an eye on him.”
I could understand that. I preferred that Sal stay where he could see me too. It kept my ass alive when the shit hit the fan.
I turned and walked away without saying another word. I didn’t think I needed to. Brant would take care of security and Lincoln. I knew there was something going on between the two of them, but I wasn’t sure what exactly that was, and they weren’t sharing, and I wasn’t going to ask. I had enough trouble keeping my own life in order. I didn’t need to go messing around in someone else’s.
Sal was on the phone when I got back to the study, leaning over Lyn’s shoulder. He was talking rapidly, and Lyn was tapping away on his laptop just as fast. Both men looked intense.
I felt as if they had found something.
I glanced at the storyboard, but nothing had changed there, so I walked over to them and waited, not wanting to interrupt.
Lyn glanced up, snorted, and started shaking his head. “Man, this case just got blown wide open.”
I frowned. “How?”
What had I missed?
“Rory just called,” Lyn replied before gesturing to Sal. “That’s who Sal is on the phone with now.”
“What did he say?”
“Eben Juarez is not Eben Juarez. The man they have in the cell listed as being Juarez is not Juarez. Sal and Rory are trying to figure out who he is right now.”
Damn.
I tapped Sal on the arm to get his attention. “Have Rory go through video surveillance and check to see when Juarez disappeared. If we have a timeline, we might be able to figure out how long he’s been missing.”
Sal nodded before going back to speaking into his cell phone.
I turned and walked over to the storyboard, made a note that Juarez was missing from prison, and then stepped back to study the board. I didn’t see anything at first, but then a slow dread began to build in my gut.
I reached for my cell phone and dialed my parents’ house.
“Junior.”
“You need to double your security right now,” I told my father in a quick breath. “Better yet, get the kids and come to the estate. We’re on total lockdown.”
